These apple empanadas have homemade empanada dough and a sweet caramel apple filling. Make this Mexican dessert recipe for a delicious fall treat!

Empanadas are fun and easy to make. They can baked or fried, and filling options are basically endless! They’re
basically Mexican hand pies, so they’re fantastic for grab and go meals. Or, in the case of sweet empanadas, they’re an easy handheld snack or dessert.

I make a lot of empanada recipes because I am always coming up with new filling ideas. Plus, they freeze beautifully, and are a snap to reheat!

If you like kid-friendly dinners, serve a batch of beef empanadas with sides of Mexican rice and authentic elote (street corn). Your kids will clean their plates! Then you can treat them to golden brown, baked caramel apple empanadas for dessert!

Ingredient notes for apple empanadas

• Empanada dough– As long as you have a food processor, making the dough is a snap! If you don’t want to make the dough, you can buy frozen empanada discs from your local grocery store or Mexican market.

SHOPPING NOTE

If you’ll be buying empanada dough for this dessert recipe, be sure to buy sweet empanada dough or discs. This is because dough for savory empanadas isn’t sweetened with sugar.

If savory dough is all you can find, you may want to add 1 teaspoon of sugar to the apple filling.

• Apples – I use Granny Smith apples, but any crisp, sweet, firm-fleshed baking apple is perfect. Other good options are Gala, Pink Lady, Honey Crisp, Cortland, and McIntosh.
  
  If you’d like to use a different fruit, feel free! Baked rhubarb empanadas are delicious, and pears, berries, and cherries all work well for sweet empanadas, too.
  
• Caramels – Kraft makes a product called caramel bits and they are really convenient to use. They’re essentially unwrapped Kraft caramels, but much smaller in size.

Substitutes for Kraft Caramel Bits

25 unwrapped Kraft caramels may be substituted for 1 cup Kraft caramel bits. Cut these into smaller pieces if using. If you’ll be using a different brand of caramel candies, keep in mind that you’ll want 5 ounces of caramels for this recipe.

If you aren’t a fan of using ingredients with so much corn syrup in them, you could make my recipe for homemade caramel and use that instead! You’ll probably need to thicken it a bit first though, because it’s a bit thin for a filling like this. I’ve included notes below on how to thicken the caramel sauce.

Of course, if you’d rather bake apple empanadas without caramel in them you can omit the caramels altogether.

How to thicken caramel sauce for empanada filling

There are a couple of options for thickening caramel sauce that’s too thin.

• Cool it down. The easiest way to thicken the sauce is to simply allow it to chill a bit longer. Until it’s completely cool, it will continue to thicken.
  
• Add a slurry. Place a cup of the thin caramel sauce into a small saucepan over medium heat. Gently stir in 1 teaspoon of cornstarch combined with 1/2 teaspoon of water. This mixture is called a slurry, and it’s a great thickener! After the slurry is stirred in, continue heating the caramel for a minute or two, stirring gently. It should thicken up perfectly for you.

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Recipe Video

If you know how to make biscuits or a basic pie crust, you’ll have no problems making the empanada dough, because the ingredients are almost identical. The process is the same for all three as well; just a few pulses in a food processor and it’s ready to go into the fridge to chill!

To watch the process of making this dessert recipe from start to finish, watch the video located in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.

Want to make some other Mexican dessert recipes?

Save your appetite for churros with chocolate sauce or fried bananas with cinnamon honey sauce!

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Apple Empanada Recipe Notes

1. Use cold ingredients for the dough.

The key to a perfect, flaky empanada crust is using ingredients that are very cold. Sometimes, I’ll even use butter straight from the freezer. I just grate it on a box grater instead of dicing it. Chill all of the ingredients for the empanada dough; you can even put your flour into the freezer for a few minutes if you’d like.

2. Chill the dough before cutting the discs.

Even when you use very cold ingredients, they tend to warm up in the food processor. If you try to cut the discs out of warm dough, it is likely to tear. Take a break and let the dough chill for 30 minutes or so first.

3. Measure out the apple filling.

It is very easy to use too much filling, and trust me; if you do this, the apple empanadas will most likely burst open in the oven. To avoid that mess, use a 1/4 measuring cup to portion out the filling.

FAQ